


The Reasons

by katiesmindpalace1991



Category: British Actor RPF, Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Ghosts, Romance, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-08-14 08:17:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8005393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katiesmindpalace1991/pseuds/katiesmindpalace1991
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas, now a ghost reevaluates his life and afterlife as he waits to be reunited with Edith. Story is in Thomas's perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Reposting of one of my first multichapter stories. Accidentally deleted this a few months ago.

I spent most of my time in my workshop part of the attic when I was alive so why should it be any different now that I’m dead. Lucille stays in either her bedroom or near the piano. I’ve lost track of how long I’ve been dead. It’s strange how both time goes by faster and slower once you are on a different plane of existence.

I’ve tried to set foot into the room I once shared with the woman I truly loved but it’s full of memories; good and bad. But mostly bad. There were never truly any good memories in the bed we shared but at least we had that one beautiful night at the depot before she got sicker and sicker. My beloved Edith, my beautiful wife and the one wife that Lucille forced me into marriage that I truly loved and still do love. She finally gave me the strength to stand up to my sister.

I knew from the moment that I danced with her in America that I loved her. I was supposed to marry Eunice McMichael but she didn’t interest nor intrigue me like Edith did when we first met. I do not regret marrying her but I do regret what happened to her father, Carter Cushing. He found out about what Lucille did to our mother when we were children and I remember pleading with her to let this one go.

“Please Lucille. There must be another way. I can’t do this to Edith I love her.”

“No you don’t. Remember your promise to me from when we were children. You could never leave me my dear brother.”

“Just please don’t do this.” I plead to her one final time.

“I promise brother. I’m going to the train station in the morning.”

I knew she was lying of course. She always did this. She always wanted me to be hers. Even now when we were dead she still wanted to control me but that’s not going to happen anymore.

But at least Edith is safe now from Lucille and hopefully she never returns here but a small part of me wishes that she does. There is something strange going on between us and since this house is haunted I wonder if Edith could truly escape her fate? She doesn’t deserve this afterlife. She deserves everything and all the happiness left in her life. As I hear the piano play in Lucille’s section of the attic I’m strangely at peace because I know what area of the house she is in. Ever since we both died that day I’ve taken the task of protecting both Enola and the baby from Lucille’s madness.

A part of me feels sorry about how she died; having her head smashed in with a shovel but it’s also oddly poetic in a macabre way. That was how she killed mother. But mostly I feel nothing for her. Not anymore. I used to think that I was tied to her because of what we went through as children and when I saw her arrive to this house after escaping the institution I should have called the authorities because I was already dealing with the literal ghosts of what we did to one another and also seeing mother’s ghost pass through the halls.

I still remember the shock on my face when she touched me for the first time and the shame that followed me afterwards as my twelve year old self laid on top of her.

“Promise me you’ll never love anyone but me?” she asks me in a commanding tone.

It took me a few moments before I answered. “I promise.” I remember telling her but inside I knew it was wrong. That was the second moment in my young and damaged life where I knew that my sister was truly mad.

The first time was when I was eight years old and she ten. She was playing with the most recent trinket I had built for her that I had made in my workshop for her. I had found a butterfly fluttering near my tools and I remember smiling as I took it in my hands.

“Lucy come look at this.”

“What is it Thomas?” she asks as she puts down her toy and walks over to me.

“A butterfly!” I tell her with a grin and a small giggle.

“Oh how nice. May I touch it?” she asks me.

I nod my head and give her a small smile but the smile drops into a frown once she put her palm flat on the butterfly, crushing it in the process. “Lucy why did you do that?”

“Oh I’m sorry Thomas.” She said in an emotionless tone. “I’d rather look at the moths on the walls.” She said as she walks back to her trinkets.

I shut my eyes and go into the nursery. “Annalise daddy’s here.”

She opens her ghostly eyes and I pick her up. I was very shocked to learn that I could touch other ghosts in this house but Lucille couldn’t. I learned that when she tried to start torturing Enola now that she was dead at last but it didn’t work.

I remember walking over to Enola and her ghost looking at me in sad understanding. She had forgiven me a long time ago. Way before she died even. When Lucille was confined to her bed because of her pregnancy she wasn’t making the poisonous tea every morning and well I was supposed to but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. To actively take a life, I didn’t do that the first two times and I wasn’t going to do that to Enola. I know why Lucille raped me the night that she conceived Annalise it was because I was starting to feel regret and remorse about what she was starting to do to Enola.

Enola was in bed coughing from the prolonged poisonings of her tea. I sat on the bed and she looks at me with sadness and pity. She was the first of my wives to discover my darkest secret and even though she was repulsed to find out the truth she knew immediately that it wasn’t by my choice.

“You need to leave here before Lucille kills you.” I plead to her.

“Why would I do that? Someone has to protect that child from its mother.”

“What about me? Aren’t I enough?” I ask her hurt by what she said.

“Sadly you’re not Thomas. You are a kind hearted man compared to your sister. I’m not dying fast enough for her and I’m going to relish in that knowledge until she finally does.”

“But I could take the baby once it’s born, leave Lucille and run away with you.”

“But you won’t do that. She has a power over you. If you try to leave she’ll just kill that baby and then finally me.”

“No she won’t do that. She’s not that much of a monster.” I tell Enola trying to convince me more than her.

Then our daughter was born and she only lived a few days before Lucille killed her by poisoning her bottle. I remember finding her lifeless body the next morning and finding Lucille crying in her bed.

“Why wasn’t she right Thomas?” she asks me.

“You know why?” I told her angrily before sadly putting the lifeless body of Annalise Sharpe in a vat of red clay like she forced me to do with the others. I had tears in my eyes as I kissed my child’s lifeless forehead for the final time.

The engineer and scientist in me know why Lucille didn’t think our daughter was right. A brother wasn’t meant to impregnate one’s sister. I avoided Lucille for months after she killed Enola. Spending most of my waking hours in the workshop, tinkering and improving the design of my machine. 

Her voice took me out of my memories. “Oh isn’t this sweet father and daughter reunited in death.” I hear her taunt.

“Leave us be, Lucille.” I tell her with no emotion. I felt nothing for her but contempt. No remorse or sorrow as I saw Edith kill her. I was too focused on making sure that Edith survived the ordeal.

“What was that Thomas?”

“You heard me Lucille. You don’t deserve to be in here anyway. You killed her. I was the one who loves her.”

“What did I tell you Thomas after you found her lifeless body in that very crib that she wasn’t right.” She tells me with no remorse for killing our baby daughter.

I set Annalise back into the crib. And then bring my attention back to my sister.

“You feel nothing anymore do you? You’ve been this way since I was a child and even now in death you are still a monster.”

“You’re a monster too, Thomas. Remember that.”

“No I’m not. I was the only human in this house growing up. You, mother and father were the real monsters.”

She looks at me with contempt. “Why you did awful things, too. You were the one who lured those stupid bitches to their deaths and you seemed content while I fucked you.”

“Yes I did seem content but that was because you were mad and I know what you are capable of. But I would never truly love you the way you claim to love me. You never loved me like Edith and were smothering me.”

“Don’t you dare say that dumb WHORE’S NAME!” she screams at me but before she could get even more angry at me I shut my eyes and go to another area of the house.

I saw my mother’s spirit in the bathtub, with the very cleaver that Lucille put in her skull when I was twelve. She was the only other ghost in this place that I don’t want to forgive.

“Hello mother.” She looks up at me. With the hard look I remember vividly as a child.

“What are you doing here you incestuous pervert?” she asks in between guttural moans.

“If you knew anything about what was going on between Lucille and I you would’ve stopped it. I was never the one to instigate it. You were too busy coming to blows with the bastard of our father to notice that the only true pure soul at the time was being victimized and raped regularly by my sister.”

She just looks at me. “Leave now Thomas.”

“Fine but just remember I’m the only thing here that can protect you from Lucille and well I just had a confrontation with her and she more mad than usual.”

Before I could go back to my workshop I feel a presence I haven’t felt in a long time. It was Edith but why was she here? I shut my eyes and open the door. I see her holding a child and Alan holding another.

“Edith what are you doing here?” I ask her but I know to her ears and Alan’s that it sounds like ghostly moans.

“It’s been a year and a half since you died Thomas.”

“Has it?” I ask before looking at Alan. I gave him a subtle nod and he returns it. “But Edith you and Alan and your children must leave before Lucille knows that you’re here.”

“But they are your children Thomas. This is Thomas Sharpe II” she indicates the child at Alan’s hip. “And this is little Lillie Anne Sharpe,” she said as she smiles at her child at her hip.

“But how?” I ask her thinking about those last few traumatic days Lucille put her through before I died.

“By some miracle the poison berries in the tea didn’t affect these two miracle of ours and well you could imagine my surprise when I discovered I was pregnant. Alan lives near us and he makes sure that we are taken care of but also I’ve written a manuscript for a book and I would love for you to read it.” she said handing me a book ‘Crimson Peak’.

“I can’t wait to read it but you must leave before Lucille notices you’re here. I kind of angered her either. She killed her own child and she won’t hesitate killing Thomas and Lillie.”

Edith gives me a sad look and then goes back to look at Alan who was apprehensive to stay any longer.

I look at Alan. 

“Protect them please.”

“I do Thomas. Every day and well you look good for being a dead man.” He adds to bring some levity to the seriousness of the situation.

“And I regret to inform you this Edith but since we have children they along with you are now tethered even more to me and I’m afraid that once all of you die that your spirits will be brought here.”

Edith looks at me with a fearful expression but also one of acceptance. “Of course,” is all she needs to say. She places a hand to my cheek and it goes through my cheek like it did the day I died. She looks at the scar on my cheek and has tears welling up in her eyes. “I still love you Edith and I wish I could see Thomas and Lillie grow up. I always think about you.”

“I will always love you Thomas and I’m going to be like Mary Shelley and die a widow.” She said before she, Alan and my children depart in the carriage. I shut the door as I see the carriage go passed the entrance of the property.

I felt a calming but it wasn’t meant to last because I feel Lucille’s presence in the room. 

“Oh more ghosts to play with once they die. I cannot wait to greet them with they arrive again.”

“You are not to touch them Lucille.” I tell her turning around and looking into her cold eyes and at her black ghostly face. “I failed to protect them while I still had a beating heart and now I will actively protect them with a dead one.”

“We shall see dear brother.” She tells me and she goes back into the attic. “We shall see.” I hear her words again in a breathy voice.

I grab the book before closing my eyes and going into my bedroom to start reading the book and the first words grabbed me. 

‘Ghosts are real. This much I know.’ 

That’s my darling Edith Cushing right there I think as I start to read.


	2. Chapter 2

17 October, 1904

I stay in the room where I stayed with Edith as much as I can like the workshop. I’ve read the now published book ‘Crimson Peak’ all the times in the world in between keeping a watchful eye on Lucille because I knew that at any time my family could arrive especially with the history of this house and that my children miraculously survived through the poisoning and their mother being pushed down the stairs that fateful night that Alan McMichael arrived and I will forever be grateful for him protecting my family.

15 October, 1909

It was in the middle of the night when I felt a new ghostly presence enter the house and if I could cry I would. I shut my eyes and see that it’s a young girl who looks to be the age of eight. It was Lillie Anne holding a teddy bear and she seemed to be in a middle of a coughing fit. Edith had put photographs enclosed in the manuscript when she visited when Lillie and Thomas were still in swaddling clothes. I see her and notice that she must have been really sickly before she died and she looked like me. I could see the faint black hair underneath the veneer of her white ghostly palate. 

“Who are you? Where are my mama and Thomas?” she asks me terrified. 

I was too busy staring at my daughter’s ghost to realize that Lucille had ceased playing the piano. 

“I don’t have time to explain but you must follow me Lillie.” I plead to her.

“How do you know who I am?”

“I’m Thomas Sharpe, your father.”

“Oh, like in the fairy tale that mama read to us.” She said in childlike wonder. Something I could recognize from my own forgotten childhood.

“Take my hand sweetheart.” I tell her gently and she does.

We go back to the bedroom and I use my abilities to lock the door and then moving the furniture to block Lucille from coming in here. That was one of the rules that became established since we both died. The house is now punishing us for the sins we did in here and it gave me the power to overrule the villainy that my sister still relishes in.

“Tell me why you are dead at only eight?” I ask my daughter gently.

“I got a lung infection and uncle Alan tried to so hard to treat me and on my death bed mama told me about how kind you were but you were trapped by Aunt Lucille and you died protecting us.” She then stares at my scar on my cheek and seems frightened by it.

“Don’t be frightened Lillie, if I could wish it away I would but this is what killed me. And that’s the reason why you will have a subtle cough until the end of time.”

“But why am I here daddy?”

“Darling when your mama and I got married she became entangled in this house because of what Aunt Lucille and I did. We did naughty things.” I tell her in a calm voice, I didn’t want to terrify my child. “This house keeps onto things and well as you can see we are no longer alive.”

“I want to go home daddy.” She tells me and I shush her relieved that her coughing had stopped for the time being.

I kneel down to be at eye level with my second daughter. “I know you do darling. I am sad that you didn’t live as long as mama, Dr. Alan or I hoped. But I met you when you were a baby. Did your mama tell you that?”

She furrows her eyebrows trying to remember. “I think so.” She said a few minutes later.

“I remember seeing your faint black curls as a baby and your brother’s blond hair that matched your mother’s.”

“Really?” she asks me with a small smile.

Before I could smile I felt Lucille presence outside of my bedroom door. “Oh Thomas is one of your bastard children no longer alive.” She said as she got into my room unexpectedly.

“Hello miss Sharpe welcome to our home.” She said in a fake sweet voice but I held Lillie in my arms protecting her from my sister.

“You are not to touch her.” I tell her the same way I did the day she murdered me.

“She can’t be at your side forever brother. One time you’ll slip up. It only takes one time and then I’ll have her in my clutches and we’ll have such fun together.”

I tighten my hold on my daughter and feel her spirit calm in my arms. “Leave now Lucille before I do something that I’ll regret.” I threaten her.

“Oh really I don’t think you have the heart for it. You never did. You tried to keep every single one of your wives alive as long as you could and you failed why should your daughter be any different for me to take from you?”

“Because I love her and I owe it to her mother and my son to protect her Lucille. I’m not going to let you take this one away from me. I’ve been successful in protecting both Enola and Annalise from your madness why would my sweet Lillie be any different?” I tell her and she just looks at me coldly.

“Because she’s half Edith and well you know how much I still despise her because she took me away from you.”

“Look at where we are Lucille?” I tell her and she leaves the room with an evil smile on her face.

I set a quiet and quite terrified Lillie on the bed and she just sits there motionless and starts coughing again.

“Oh sweetheart can you moan out please?” I ask her and make ghostly moans to show her what I mean.

She does and it seems to work because I can see the outline of her lungs underneath her white nightgown start to settle from the wheezing. After a few moments she turns her attention back to my imprint of my hand that still had the bandages around it. 

“Daddy why do you still have bandages on it must have healed by now?” she asks in a small voice.

I look at it and I remember getting it when her mother asked me if anyone had died in this house and I was starting to panic and the hot steam burned my hand.

“I had an accident with the machine from the fairy tale that your mummy wrote about. And she bandaged it.” I notice the old marks from old bandages on Lillie. “Did mummy take care of your ouchies too?” I ask her in a way that I knew an eight year old would understand.

“Yes and uncle Alan, they both took care of Thomas and my ouchies.”

“That’s great. Your mother did a good job with you and Thomas and we must make sure to remember that when we meet them both again.”

“When will that be daddy?”

“Time can only tell sweetheart but you must know that now that you are a ghost that time passes both slowly and fast. And also that there are other ghosts in this house and they don’t look like you or I?”

“I don’t understand daddy. Why was aunt a black ghost when we are white?”

“We are the only white spirits in this house. There are things I did when I was alive that I deeply regret doing and you are too young to understand for now darling but I hope one day when you find out the truth that you don’t hide from me. I need you by my side until you are able to be alone without your aunt finding you.”

“Ok.”

I smile at her and then look at the tawny teddy bear clutched in her arms. 

“You also have another protector here and it’s this teddy bear. Does it have a name?”

“His name is Humphrey. Uncle Alan gave him to me last year and he tried his best trying to make me feel better and I guess he didn’t want to leave me.” She tells me in an innocent way and my dead heart felt like it was breaking because this innocent little soul is going to be trapped here for who knows how long?

I kiss her temple with my ghost lips and she lays there and falls in a ghostly sleep. I remember experiencing those moments a few days after I was dead and I was very shocked to learn that we were still able to sleep considering the lack of a pulse.

I moan out lowly so she couldn’t hear it. She needed her rest. I think about the moment I saw her for the first time as a child. She was asleep at Edith’s hip but then I remember seeing her open her eyes and she looked at me like she knew who I was and I so much wanted to hold her in my arms but I couldn’t. And now I have that for always and I wish she didn’t have to leave life after only living for eight years. It’s not fair. I blame myself for putting this fate on not just her but to Thomas and Edith.

This was my fault and I have no chance now to finally be at peace because I has to make up for my sins to two daughters now and then I have to repeat that cycle with Thomas and to a lesser extent Edith because we already made peace for all the events that happened when we first met in Buffalo and I hope and pray that once she returns here that she’ll be fine with being in this house with Lucille. It was late the next day when Lillie started moving again. She turns around and opens her ghost eyes and my dead heart breaks as I hear the coughing start again. I walk over to her and just hold onto her as her coughing fit ends. I have an idea on how to cheer her up. I put her back on the bed and open up the book her mother wrote.

“Darling how about I tell you a fairy tale of when I waltzed with your mother. Has mummy told you that story yet?”

“Yes but I want to hear you tell it.”

“Alright.” I took a ghostly breath and let the first real good memories I had in my adult life. “Once upon a time…”

I was irritated by Lucille telling me that I must get Eunice McMichael to agree to marry me and well I met the girl and she didn’t interest me at all. It was bad enough that I had to do this over and over again. Pretend like I wasn’t capable of creating my own machine. And the money, the money was spent on traveling and fucking hell all I wanted was to make the fucking thing for real. We never reached that point because Lucille would get jealous because I would grow attached and feel remorse for what we were doing and use sex to distract me. I put on an act of being charming as I walk into the office building where Carter Cushing worked. I hear Mrs. McMichael gossiping about a baronet and well that means nothing to me especially when I have a worthless title. And that was the moment I set my eyes on Edith for the first time.

“…So I stand in the rain waiting for your mother to be alone so I could ask her to let me escort her to a ball.”

“Like Cinderella’s?” Lillie asks me.

“Yes, indeed. And to my pleasant surprise she accepted my request after a few moments. When we entered everyone gasped as I took off her cape and she dazzled in her dress and I knew I had to court her and not Eunice. I was asked to show the Americans how the waltz was done in England and I accepted and I held a candle and asked your mother this…”

“Would you be mine?” I asked Edith.

She looks at me questioningly and I was getting lost in her innocence but also her maturity. She was someone I knew that might help me escape the hell I’ve been living in my whole life. I offer her my hand and she took it. We danced around the room and I could feel her breath on my body and it was intoxicating and I knew that she was the one for me and I felt awful for what I must do to be with her. I have to sign her life away so I could marry her and it wasn’t fair.

“…and I’m happy to say that the candle remained lit as your mother and I finished dancing. I knew she was going to be my wife.” I finish the story at that moment.

“It’s over?”

“Yes I’m afraid. The rest isn’t appropriate for innocent ears like yours.” I tell her as I put my ghost finger to playfully boop on her ghost nose.

She makes a giggling like sound and I join her in some chuckles.

“I’m glad that I’m with you now but I still miss Thomas and mommy.”

“Well I’m sorry my dear but that feeling won’t go away.” I tell her sadly and she looks at me with sad eyes and I kiss her temple in reassurance that she was going to be safe in my care.

She looks around the room again. “Are there any others toys I can play with? I love Humphrey but he needs friends to play with too.”

“It’s up in the attic but I don’t want to take you there right now.”

“Why?”

“The attic is big. When I was a child I had a workshop where I made toys and trinkets for my sister and myself. My parents weren’t as nice as your mummy is and you met your aunt Lucille and that’s how she is. She’ll never be nice to you.”

“Is she like the wicked witch of the west?” she asks me and I have no idea what she’s talking about.

“I don’t understand your question sweetheart. Your aunt is not a witch.”

“Ok well the wicked witch of the west is from a book that mommy got me when I was five and she read it to me and Thomas who complained about it being a book about a little girl and then I stuck my tongue out at him.” She told me before giggling again.


	3. Chapter 3

20, October, 1909

I take Lillie up to the nursery so she could meet her older sister. I lead her to the crib. “Ok sweetheart I want you to meet your sister.”

“Sister?” she asks me with a confused look on her face.

“Yes this is Annalise. She was just a baby when she died. Your aunt Lucille killed her.”

“Why?” she asks me.

“She said she was not right and well I do agree with her. You see I had the baby with my sister.”

Lillie looks at me with a frown. “Why would you do that? Mama told me that only two people who love each other have babies and you don’t like auntie Lucille.”

“I’m sorry sweetheart but it’s true I had a baby with your aunt and I shouldn’t have. We were only children when it started and up until we died. I love your mommy still. I fell in love with her before I died. And with that love we created both you and Thomas and I’ll always be grateful for that.”

“Okay daddy can I see her now?”

I pick her up and we walk closer to the crib. “Now darling she’s going to covered with the red clay and well it’ll look like blood but please don’t be afraid of her.”

Lillie shudders a bit when she glances at the baby but she smiles when Annalise turns her head and makes cooing sounds to her. “Hi baby. I’m your sister Lillie. You probably can’t talk because you are a baby like Uncle Alan’s baby girl and we’ll be great friends.” She then raises Humphrey up so the bear could meet Annalise.

I smile as I see my two daughters interact as well as they could with just Lillie able to talk.

30 March, 1910

It was a normal day as any for us, the dead who live at Allerdale Hall. I had brought Lillie up into Annalise’s nursery so the two sisters could play. Well play in the sense that the eldest sister really couldn’t do much but lay there but Lillie had done the kind thing and let Humphrey lay next to her elder sister’s body and Annalise just looks at it.

“Look daddy Humphrey loves Annalise like we do!” she told me as excited as her spirit could.

“Very good darling…” I was about to say something when I felt a shift in the house. It was a group of five. Two adults, two children and a nanny and I roll my eyes as I have to now deal with protecting living people from Lucille. Something that in life I wasn’t successful at. I only saved four people out of the many that Lucille had try to kill.

“Enola can you come in here please?” I say aloud in a voice that was loud enough for her to hear but not to frighten the new family moving into the house.

Enola appears and looks at me skeptically. Her body still covered with the red clay as I always remember. Oh how I wish I could see her the way she was before Lucille and I ruined her life.

“Yes Thomas?” 

“Watch over Annalise and Lillie for me I have to talk to my sister.”

“Understood Thomas.” She glides over to them.

“Daddy where are you going? Why is aunt Enola going to watch over us?” my precious daughter asks me.

“There is a new family moving in and well daddy has to talk with your aunt Lucille to make sure she behaves herself. So can you be a good little spirit and stay here with your sister and Enola?” I ask her looking at her level.

She nods her head. “Yes daddy.”

“That’s my girl.” I tell her and then kiss her temple.

I close my eyes and go back into the attic where Lucille sits by the piano playing one of the many pieces that she enjoys playing daily.

“Hello Thomas.” She welcomes me into the room politely.

“There is a family moving in and I have to make sure you know that I have to protect them from this place.”

“Oh but why? No one has been here in years. The house needs some life in it once again.” She tells me while still playing the piano.

“This house should be long gone but it’s not and you know why. I just don’t want this house to still keep on to things. That damn dog is still hanging on to life and he should’ve been dead way before we died.”

“If you had killed that dog like I ordered you too he would be like we are.” She turns around and looks at me. “But then again you were always the softer one about killing. Couldn’t even kill a fucking dog. You are an embarrassment as a Sharpe.”

“No I’m not Lucille. We were all damaged but at least when I died I hadn’t fallen completely into madness.” I tell her and she huffs angrily at me.

“Fine.” Is all she said before starting to play the piano once again.

“And I mean it Lucille you will behave yourself with this new family. There are children living among us now and I will not have you ruin their lives like we let our family ruin ours.”

“All right as long as they stay out of the attic I won’t harm them.” She tells me emotionless as always.

“You better keep your word Lucille or I will be forced to keep you locked away in here and I really, really don’t want to do that.”

I then go back into the nursery and then I pick up Lillie and we go into the furthest hallway in the house so I can find out all I could about the family without giving myself away.  
“Are you sure this house will be fine for all of you? There is a lot of disrepair and well the two siblings that lived here died in 1901 and well the widow of the brother moved back to New York. She didn’t say much except that there were things here that will haunt you.”

“Oh that’s just superstitions and ghost stories.” The father scoffs at the man.

I roll my eyes at this man’s pride. A part of me wanted to scare them so they would leave but that wouldn’t help anything. And also I made a solemn vow to Edith in my dead heart the night that Lillie arrived that I would do everything in my power to not scare my innocent little girl. It was bad enough that my past is damaged and that I’m reminded of the horrors that Lucille and I did to not only Edith but to others as well. Lillie doesn’t deserve to see the truth yet and I will protect that innocence with my entire being. She will forever be eight like I will always forever be thirty two. I do sometimes wonder how Edith will be when she returns to me? Will she be the way she was when I saw her last when Lillie and Thomas were children or will she appear like she’s aged when I haven’t?

I’m pulled out of my thoughts with Lillie tugging at my sleeve. “Daddy there are a little boy and a little girl like me can I say hello?”

“I’m afraid not sweetheart. They can’t see us and hopefully they never will.”

“Ok daddy.” She said sadly. “But I do wonder what it would be like to have tea parties with her or dress up.”

I take her hand and we go where the family goes on a tour so I can figure out where they are going to be sleeping so I can keep an eye on not only the dead souls in this house but the living ones now.

“There are two rooms that Edith Cushing Sharpe requested we warn you about. The attic and the basement, her husband was a baronet and industrialist and he mined the red clay that is underneath the house.”

“That sounds delightful.” The mother tells the man.

“Indeed, darling. How many rooms are there?” the father asks him.

“She wasn’t sure. She only lived her for a few months before her husband and her sister-in-law died. When I approached her about you possibly owning this house that there are some parts of the house that aren’t safe and there could be a lot of reasons for that. Well as you can see the roof is damaged and the house is sinking into the clay.”

“Thank you for informing us.”

“Your welcome Mr. Harper.”

Oh the Harpers. That’s a great family name and it doesn’t sound like it has the tragic history that the Sharpe name had.

“And remind me again what your children’s names are?”

“Michael and Matilda aged five and three respectfully.” Mr. Harper said with pride and the two blond children run to hold onto their mother’s hands.

Great names I think to myself and Lillie giggles quietly so the Harpers wouldn’t hear us.

“These are the set of keys for most of the rooms except those that Mrs. Cushing Sharpe requested stay locked. One being the room she shared with her late husband, the others being the basement and attic.” The solicitor tells the couple handing Mr. Harper the keys.

“Understood.” Mr. Harper said with a curt nod.

I look at Lillie and we go into the bedroom that I shared with her mother. She sits on the bed and plays with Humphrey and I go back to read some of my old books about engineering.The rest of the night we spent in this room. I didn’t trust Lucille’s word but I wasn’t going to start anything with her right now especially with the two newest children living in this house. I wouldn’t want to be the monster to ruin their happiness unless I had to and I hope I didn’t need to do that.


	4. Chapter 4

1 May, 1910

It was late at night and the Harpers were sleeping. They had been here for a while. And Lucille has kept her word so far and has stayed in the attic and I’m relieved that the Harper children haven’t met Lillie, yet. I had learned that Edgar Harper was a clay miner something I find fascinating that Edith would allow a man who was so like me and the fact that she had requested that he use the machine that I designed and created.

I knew my daughter was lonely but I had explained to her that it wasn’t safe for this family to see us. This wasn’t going to be their legacy. This was ours. The roof was getting patched up and I was relieved. I always wanted to fix it but Lucille wouldn’t let me. Claiming that it would make it easier for our victims to become moths like she claimed mother would’ve turned into and we were wrong.

There are moments where I look at my daughter taking her ghost nap as she is accustomed to do and all I think about is how I wish I had a childhood like hers and Thomas.  
Lucille and I were born into a loveless house. Our parents didn’t love each other and our parents didn’t love us. I still remember my father abandoning me in the woods near this huge house while we were hunting. I was only a child, not even that much older than Thomas would be now.  
I had a messed up childhood compared to my innocent daughter and son. I found death oddly arousing and that terrified me as a child and I let my brotherly love for my sister to turn me into a monster. Having sex with my own sister made me a monster and I sometimes wonder what my life would’ve been like if I hadn’t come back to this place after living with my aunt and uncle until I turned eighteen.

Would I have ever meet Edith and I’m pretty sure I already know the answer. I wouldn’t have and that makes my dead heart break. I never intended on marrying the women I eventually did. The first two died of natural cause. The first died of age and the other died from her illness. I wasn’t close to getting attached to them so Lucille wasn’t threatened by them to try to even poison them but I know now that it would’ve happened eventually.

I hear some rain drops hitting the window pane of the room and I see Lillie turn a bit in her sleep. The engineering side of my brain finds it astonishing how we, my daughter, Lucille and I still have control of our movements as ghosts when my own mother and Enola could not.  
I close my eyes and lean back in the chair I was sitting in listening to the relaxing sound of the rain. Thinking about Edith once again, thinking about the one night that I was with her intimately. The night I gave my entire heart to her and in the process creating the two most important people in our lives, the two people that make my marriage and death have meaning.

We were lying in bed in the aftermath of making love. She smiles contently and I return it. I kiss her temple and she turns her body closer to mine. I put my hand to rest at her hip as she falls asleep.

‘Where has she been my life?’ I think. ‘Will this one night be the only real night I have with her because I know once we return that Lucille will stop at nothing in trying to control me once again. I just broke her one rule, our rule and I don’t regret it. I love Edith but I have always been with Lucille since we were children. We have a tragic life, we had a daughter together for god’s sake and that’s something that isn’t as forgivable as me admitting to my lovely Edith that yes I did court her for the money at first but when I saw her break down at the sight of Carter Cushing’s dead body I knew that she meant more to me.

When we returned to Allerdale Hall Lucille walks up to me in a rage after checking on Edith. “Where were you Thomas?”

“There was a storm, Lucille.” I tell her as I walk into the kitchen to have some breakfast. “Where’s Edith.”

“She’s in her room and she didn’t drink that damn tea. She’s too smart Thomas. She’s not only beautiful but she’s smart to boot. How will a moth like me ever compete with a butterfly like her?”

“Stop this Lucille I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Why not? It worked with Enola or do you have feelings now for Edith?”

“Of course not.” I tell her.

“You do. You fucked her last night Thomas.”

“Yes I did, but that’s none of your concern anymore. We, don’t work anymore Lucille. I’ve only been upstairs in your room because I have flashbacks of father caning me in those woods. I don’t want to love you anymore.”

She looks angrily at me. “Now you listen brother. I love you and you love me. What will happen once it’s out in the open? It’s not like Edith is going to be as understanding as Enola was.”

“She figured it out because you got pregnant Lucille that’s it.”

“And she lived longer than I would’ve liked and well we know what happened with the baby.”

“She had a name Lucille and the reason why she was born wrong was because we weren’t meant to have her. We aren’t right Lucille.”

“Don’t say that Thomas.”

“It’s the truth. Look at what our love did to us as children. You killed mother because she found out the truth and was going to separate us.”

“I had too, Thomas. No one else loves you like I do.”

“You’re right and it’s not like I could ever leave you anyway. But I don’t want to do this anymore. I want a happy live with Edith that’s all I want.”

“Fine you’ll have that life but don’t expect me to jump for joy about it. I mean it’s bad enough that you fucked her last night.” She told me narrowing her eyes at me.  
“I’m going to go up in my workshop and don’t bother me.”

“I wouldn’t dream it right now.” She said as I left the kitchen.

The next day though I found Lucille feeding Edith porridge and I knew that it was too late for me and Edith now. Lucille was going to do this and I was too much of a coward to leave my sister because I was dependent on my rapist. I knew she was raping me but I also wanted her approval. It had been that way since she tried breastfeeding me when we were children. I had repressed those memories for my adolescent years along with the repeated sexual encounters we had. I went upstairs that night intending to tell her that Edith and I were leaving but when I got up there she had walked over to me and kissed me on the lips.

“Don’t. Stop this!” I tell her pleadingly. 

“Oh I see because now you’ve had another woman. Your wife that your real lover isn’t good enough for you anymore.” She almost screams at me.

“Keep quiet, Lucille!” I tell her trying to quiet her down.

“No Thomas! This isn’t how it works. I’m the one in charge and you do what I tell you.” She said grabbing me by the collar and pushes me onto her bed. 

I moan out in distress as she puts her hand around me. I hid my face behind her shoulder so she wouldn’t see my face. I knew she always got off on my different facial expressions each time we did this.

I hear footsteps creaking up the stairs and I kept on moaning pretending like I was enjoying myself. I just wanted it to be over. I hear Lucille’s chuckle and knew that Edith now knows. And as I try to keep the growing disgust of what I let my sister do to me once again at bay I hear Lucille and Edith arguing but also someone knocking at the door. I run out at the landing of where I was last. They are a flight above me.

“Stop it there is someone at the door.” I tell them.

And I see Lucille push Edith. I see Edith’s body on the ground surrounded by the snow and the clay. I let Dr. McMichael in and explain to him what happened and I knew he didn’t believe me. He knew the same things that Carter Cushing knew and all I could do was keep my silence so I could do what I could to save not only by wife but the good doctor as well.

The rest of it passes in slow motion. Me stabbing Alan, telling Edith that I love her and even though I’ve done monstrous things with Lucille that I’m not as mad as she is. Trying to tell Lucille that I broke the promise I made her when I was but a child. The betrayal I felt when Lucille plunged the knife in my face and the tears that followed as I lay dying in the room we were in all the time as children. And finally seeing Edith once again as the form I am now seeing her kill Lucille.

Even though the years have passed it still feels like yesterday. Lillie had told me that she saw a photograph of Edith and I from our wedding. She thought I looked like a prince and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I’m anything but a prince. I look at my daughter and I wonder what it would’ve been like if I hadn’t died. If I had been strong enough to run away with Lucille that day we left for the depot. If we had gone back to Buffalo and I would’ve been able to see the birth of my children. The only memories I have of child birth is Annalise’s and it isn’t the same than comforting my wife. The woman I truly loved.

Before I knew it was now early morning and Lillie walks up to me holding Humphrey.

“Daddy?”

“Yes my darling?” I ask her.

“Why were your mama and daddy mean to you?”

I look at her with my yellow tinted eyes wondering where she figured that out.

“What do you mean?”

“Well when we look at the Harpers you get a little quiet when you see how much their daddy hugs and kisses them and I think maybe your daddy didn’t do that for you and Auntie Lucille. And also I’ve seen grandma Sharpe and she’s not very nice.”

“You are very observant young lady. You are a lot like your mother that way.” I look into her eyes and I pick her up to sit her on my knee. “My father and my mother weren’t like your mother. They treated me and Lucille horribly and our father would cane us and he would hurt our mother very badly. And when Lucille and I were children we started loving one another because we had no one else and you’ve heard about how everything else went before I met your mother.”

“I love you daddy.” She said bringing her ghost lips to kiss at my ghost cheek.

“I love you too, Lillie.” I look into her happy blue eyes again. “What should we do today? You must get bored with doing the same boring things every day?”

“Tell me about the red clay I love that story.”

I smile. “So well the red clay under this house is stronger than most clays in the world and that might come from the rich and vibrant ombre tints in it….”

I look at the room of men who didn’t seem interested in investing in the machine. Carter Cushing seems unconvinced and just humiliated me in front of every one but the only one who wasn’t laughing was his daughter, Edith. She looked beautiful with her yellow dress and her glasses. Her beautiful yellow hair pinned up in a beautiful up do.   
She wasn’t the one that Lucille had chosen and well maybe it’s time for me to make the first real choice in my life. And Edith Cushing might be the one to inspire me to step away from my sister once and for all. All the while I tell her this tale I hear faint piano music and it makes me a little cautious because if my dead ears could hear it, it’s only a matter of time before the Harpers hear it as well and what will happen after that? I guess time will only tell.


	5. Chapter 5

15 May, 1910

I was preparing Lillie for a trip up into the attic to visit Lucille. Seeing how Edgar Harper was to his wife and children inspired me that I had to mend bridges between myself and Lucille. I still feel betrayed for my childhood but being in the attic with Lucille wasn’t as bad as I made it sound to Lillie.

“Daddy are you sure that aunt Lucille will be nice to me?”

“Of course darling. She owes it to me. I know that she still loves me like a good older sister does. Like how you did as the oldest twin to your brother.”

“But mommy told us stories of how auntie was mean to her and hurt you so bad that you went away.”

“She wasn’t always like that darling. She tried to protect me and I resented her for it since we’ve been stuck in this place. I guess it was my own guilt for how my childhood turned out.” I tell her taking her hand and we go into the attic and hear the faint notes of Lucille playing.

“I’ve been quiet enough for them haven’t I?” she asks. “I don’t want to frighten them or whatever you told me the last time you were up here.” She tells me without even turning to look at me.

“I’ve come,” I look at my daughter’s kind blue eyes. “Well we’ve come up here to make peace with you.”

She turns around to look at me and Lillie. “And why would you do that, Thomas? I’m not worthy of your love anymore I mean I did kill you for wanting Edith to run away with us.” She told me before resuming her playing.

“I understand that Lucille but if we have any chance of cohabitating with the Harpers we have to make the effort. They don’t want to take me away from you. No one will ever take me away from you again.”

“What about when Edith and Thomas return to you? Where will you go then?”

“I guess we’ll have to live here together the way we should’ve when I first married her.” She stops mid-key and I knew that I struck a nerve. “Don’t overreact please Lillie is here and she thinks of you in a negative light and I want to prove to her that you weren’t always like this.”

“Oh I have Thomas. Father and mother turned me this way and the same goes for you. We had no one but each other and even in the end I was the one who took that happiness away from us.” She pauses and turns around to look at us. “I blamed Edith for a long time but this is going to be a long afterlife and since she’s going to be spending it with us just like the others that we killed.”

Lillie shudders as she hears that we killed people. “Daddy didn’t kill anyone mommy said so.”

“He may not have done the acts but he did nothing to try to stop me. It’s been that way since we’ve been children. You’ve heard about your grandmother I presume?”

“Yes she looks scary.” Lillie told her.

“She was a monster. Love makes monsters of us all. But the difference between your grandfather and grandmother was that there was no love there not like what I had with your father.”

“Which was loyal on my end and possessive on yours,” I tell her with brutal honesty.

“I thought we were trying to get along now Thomas. We’ve lost the house now and well I would love to have this house now to be one of love and not fear and hate.” She tells me with narrowed eyes.

“Forgive me Lucille but I also don’t want to lie to my daughter. It’s hard enough for me to have her with me here until who knows how long it will be when Edith and Thomas returns here.”

“All right then now that we’ve had this nice talk may you leave me in peace. I still want to play some more of the piano. Unlike you Thomas and Lillie I’m not allowed to leave this room because no one, not you, not Lillie nor this house trusts me anymore. How funny is that? I was the one who wanted this house to return to its former glory and it took another family to do that.”

“Once I fully trust in you not harming the family I will allow you to roam these halls freely and see the now patched roof and well the clay problem has decreased since Edith sold this house.” I tell her and I take Lillie’s hand back in mine. “I’ll see you soon Lucille.”

“Bye Thomas.” I could still hear her voice as we went back into the bedroom. Lillie picked up Humphrey and cuddled it as she went to lay down on the bed.

“She wasn’t so scary today daddy. Not like she was the night I came to be here with you.”

I nodded and sat down to look at my old notes for the machine that was now working perfectly and I smile. “Oh Edith you are a wonderful woman.” I whisper aloud in the room and Lillie giggles, obviously hearing me praise her mother. I turn to look at my daughter and smile. “Are you eavesdropping on me little one?”

“Maybe daddy.” She told me feigning innocence.

I look down at my beautiful daughter and wonder what she and Thomas were like as young children? I know that I would be a better father than my own. James Sharpe was a bastard who beat his wife and defenseless children. Beatrice Sharpe was no innocent either. 

The surname Sharpe was cursed I thought and then I saw the smiling face of the little girl on the bed and I knew that Edith did a fine job raising our children and she is still doing a great job with Thomas right now. I just know it in my dead heart. My dead heart still beats for Edith and whenever I think about her which is every night I wonder what would’ve been if I hadn’t been such a coward and put a stop to Lucille’s evilness before Edith started getting sicker once we returned from the depot.

“Thomas what’s wrong? Is it about last night?” Edith asks me as we sit on the bed in the room that we rented.

I look at her and I want to tell her everything but I’m always afraid of how Lucille will react. We were expecting more letters and documents from Edith’s solicitor in New York.

“I’m fine.” I lie to her face.

She puts her hand on my cheek and brings her lips to mine. I deepen the kiss and she lays back having me on top of her. I’m still wearing my suspenders and the rest of my clothes and she wearing a beautiful nightgown but I couldn’t wait to see what she looked like underneath.

This might be the only chance I have with her unless I talk Lucille out of the plan. I love Edith so much. She was already getting sick from the poisoned tea and I feel so much guilt and remorse for doing that to her. To the woman I love with all my heart. I’m breaking my promise to Lucille and I don’t feel remotely guilty about it either. She was completely different than any other woman I’ve ever met before, even Lucille.

I undress and attack her lips and she smirks into my kiss and flips us over so that she is in control and I love that. It’s always been that way with Lucille but I don’t want to think about Lucille right now. She lowers her core on my penis and starts riding me and I look up into her eyes with a combination of love and lust. And my heart beats fast in my chest as she rides me to completion and I soon follow in her passion. We kiss passionately until she falls asleep. If only I knew that we created two of the most important people in our lives and that I’d never be alive to see them be born.

I was taken out of my thoughts by Lillie looking at the door. “What is it darling?”

“I hear something daddy from outside. It’s loud.”

“Oh that’s the machine darling. Edgar Harper is mining the clay.”

“Oh.” She starts giggling quietly.

“What is it?”

“Mommy always told me and Thomas stories about when you were in your workshop working on your prototype and how happy you were that you made it and then mommy gets sad because you died a few short days after that.” She said trailing off.

“But those last few days with your mother were both gratifying and scary because your mother wasn’t well and she was dying because I let Aunt Lucille make her sick and well we didn’t know that you and Thomas were on the way…” I tell her and she looks up at me with confusion.

“Why did you and Aunt Lucille try to kill mommy?”

I took a deep and unnecessary breath. “Darling before and after I married your mother I was lost. I had a rough life and that doesn’t excuse the things I did. I married women, took their money and let Lucille hurt them with her poisoned tea. But then one night I found your mother screaming for me and when I saw your aunt prepare the tea and offer it to her I knew I had to get her out of this house as soon as possible.”

“But how could mommy see the ghosts. I thought only ghosts could see other ghosts?” she asks me.

“I didn’t know it at the time but your grandmother had been warning your mother about this house all of her life since she died when your mother was a child. Your mother could see ghosts in these halls when even I nor your aunt could. But if it means anything to you right now that when your Uncle Alan came to take your mother away I was going to let him.”

“But why daddy you still love mommy even now?” Lillie asks me.

“Because I wasn’t going to let my sister harm her any more. I died protecting your mother and also protecting you and your brother. You’ve seen the scar on my cheek well that’s what killed me. After I became a ghost I visited your mother right outside near the machine I designed and built and when she touched my face with her clay covered hands the gash vanished and all was left was this scar.” I told her taking her ghost hand and putting it on my face. “I remember leaning my face into her palm. I didn’t say anything to her because there was nothing left to say. She knew that I will always love her.”

“Daddy that’s a great story. I hope you get to tell Thomas one day and I hope mommy comes back and we can all be together. You need to give her a big hug and kiss.”

“I plan on doing that sweetheart.” And more than that I think to myself but my daughter didn’t need to know the inappropriate thoughts I had about her mother.


	6. Chapter 6

15 April 1912

The Harper family went on a cruise liner or something. I heard the word Titanic and that they wanted to venture to America so Edgar could work on a patent for my machine, well his machine. He perfected it. I lost track of time as I as in my workshop when I saw Lillie appear in the room. 

“Daddy Mr. Harper is back in the house?”

“Really what about his family, darling?”

“They aren’t here and daddy he looks awfully wet and he’s see through like us.”

That got my attention and I heard Lucille stop playing the piano obviously having heard our conversation. But the piano started playing again and I breathed a sigh of relief it was going to be hard enough having to explain the situation to Edgar.

“Where is he darling?”

“In the entry way of the house he seems awfully shaken.” She said and then she took my hand and we close our eyes to greet him at the entry way.

When he sees us he immediately gets confused.

“Why are you two in my house and why is there a piano playing?”

“Mr. Harper I’m Thomas Sharpe and this is my daughter Lillie Anne Sharpe.”

“You’re not Edith Cushing’s late husband are you?”

“Yes I am. I died in this house in 1901 and she,” I indicate to my daughter, “she died in 1909. You and your family moved in a few months later and we’ve been watching over you, your wife and children.”

“But why?”

“There are things in this house. The solicitor must have explained this to you when you moved in? Remember Edith had requested that some rooms stay locked away.”

“But if I can see you does that mean I’m dead?” he asks me.

I look at his appearance. He obviously died surrounded by water. “Yes you are dead but I don’t understand why you are here. You have no ties to this house like me, my daughter and my sister do and well the other ghosts that live here.”

“How many spirits live in this house?”

“That’s a little hard to explain but I’ll tell you a story of my life. My parents were abusive to me and my sister and there came a point where we only had each other and things quickly became sexual between us. Our mother found out the truth and my sister killed her while she was bathing.” He looks at me with shocked eyes. “My sister was institutionalized until she was of age to be released. I was raised with my uncle and aunt until I turned eighteen. I married women for their money and Lucille would poison them with tea. And that was the cycle until I married Edith and fell in love with her.”

“Am I in hell?”

“No you’re not. We’re just ghosts. I’ve made sure my sister never harmed you, your wife or your children. It’s been that way for two years. I’ve watched as you perfected my machine and I thank you.”

“Will I ever meet this Lucille you’ve mentioned?”

“I wouldn’t wish that on you. She is a mad spirit who pretty much stays on the piano and she used to want to torture the other ghosts but I’ve done everything in my power to make sure she does not harm a soul, alive or dead.”

“All right.” He said uneasy. “But why aren’t I in heaven?”

“You must have died where your body couldn’t be properly buried because I don’t think this house plans to keep onto you or your family. You don’t have the surname of Sharpe.”

“I died in a sinking ship. My wife and children made it to a lifeboat and I wasn’t allowed on. It broke my heart to leave them and die.”

“That’s understandable. I didn’t know that my darling wife was pregnant when I died. I feel so much guilt still because Lucille and I were poisoning her and miraculously she survived and escaped with two growing babes inside her.”

“You say that you and your sister poisoned women if that’s reason enough to think that this is hell I don’t know what is?”

“Well we are in the entry way of Allerdale Hall. You patched this roof and the red clay doesn’t seem to be sinking this house anymore.” 

“Do I look like you two?” he asks us.

“You are wet and your face is alabaster white. You don’t have red streaks or sunken eyes like I do and you don’t look as sickly as my daughter.”

“Will I be able to be reunited with my family?”

“I don’t know. Time passes differently on this plane of existence. It feels like time is going slowly and fast at the same time.” I tell him with absolute honesty.

“Will my family come back to the house?”

“I don’t know with the trauma that your children and wife experienced would you want them to cross the ocean again?”

“I don’t. It was a scary experience dying slowly as water rushed towards me. How did you two die?”

“Lucille stabbed me on the face hence the scar on my face and Lillie died from a lung infection. So in hindsight my death was the least painful. I know if I had seen Lillie get sicker and sicker it would have broken my heart.” I tell Edgar all the while clutching my daughter’s hand.

“I just want to be alone for a while. Where should I go?”

“Just close your eyes and think about the place you want to be most and you’ll be there once you open your eyes oh and there’s a period of time where you just sleep. It’s called ghost naps. It was something that happened with myself after Edith was safe and away from this house.”

“Ok. Thank you and I hope I can talk with you again.”

I nod and he returns a nod of his own. He closes his eyes and he fades away and I sense that he is in the bedroom where he slept with his wife.

I take my daughter’s hand and we go back into the attic. Lucille is there waiting for us.

“So I take it that Edgar Harper is like us now?”

“Yes. He died this morning. The ship they were on sank into the ocean. His wife and children are still alive. He is now in his bedroom and you are not to greet him until I know for sure that you won’t do anything to harm him.”

She looks at me coldly. “I’ve kept my word about not harming the family. Why would I change my mind now?”

“Because you are who you are Lucille. You try to kill everything in your path like the moths you love so much. You’ve done that since we were children. You crushed a butterfly in my hands when I was eight years old.”

“I didn’t do that Thomas that must have been mother.” She tells me trying to change the conversation.

“No that was you. I remember it vividly. You tried to kill Edith. You openly threatened the lives of my children when they were infants when I discovered that I was a father. You tried to harm Lillie when she arrived. Why should I trust you Lucille?”

“Because you love me, Thomas,” she told me.

“Loved, I loved you. I was loyal to you as a fault. I always did things that you told me to do. That ended when you killed me. I felt nothing as I saw Edith bash your head in with that shovel. I don’t love you, I pity you.”

“That’s not true, Thomas. You promised me you would never leave me.”

“Well you promised me that you wouldn’t hurt me like our mother and father did and you broke it. The only reasons why I’m here is because I feel guilt for what we did. You are stuck here. Lillie and I can move on at any time when Thomas and Edith return to us but also I feel a debt to Enola and Annalise. Those are the reasons. None are for you.” I tell her getting angry. Angry at her for the first time in what felt like years.

“You better watch out for those reasons now. Our truces is broken and I promise that once Edith and that bastard son of your return that I’m going to be most welcoming.” She told us angrily as she went back to her piano.

“Daddy I want to go somewhere else and hide. She scares me.” Lillie said and I realize that I just made a huge mistake in getting angry because I just made things worse for those of us in this house.

I take her hand and we go back into my bedroom. She clutches Humphrey to her chest. I sit on the bed and bring my daughter into my arms. “I’m sorry darling. I don’t know what came over me just then. Just know that I’m going to protect you from her. I’m going to warn Mr. Harper and when Thomas and your mother return here I’ll protect even better than I did when I was alive. I promise you that sweetheart.”

“Ok daddy.” She told me sadly.

I kiss her temple and shut my eyes as I take an unnecessary breath and hope that maybe I can mend things with Lucille one day.

I think about Edith as I fall into a ghost nap. The day that I saw my children for the first time, Alan holding my son Thomas at his hip, who had the same yellow hair that I remember telling Edith that I loved it when she wore it down. It made her look breathtakingly beautiful but she was always beautiful. I then look at the little girl at my beloved Edith’s hip. She had beautiful black curls like mine. I had a connection with both of my children at that moment but when I saw my daughter open her eyes to look at me I knew she realized who I was. She didn’t start crying as she saw my spirit looking at her.

Edith had found about Annalise and even though she didn’t understand the relationship between Lucille and I as children and as adults she didn’t pass judgement to me, she only judged Lucille because she knew that my sister was suffocating me. Hell I was suffocating from the overwhelming guilt of all the horrible things I did along with my sister.  
I look at her and then I remember Lucille still playing the piano but I knew she was going to stop playing soon and it broke my heart seeing Edith, our children and Alan leaving in the carriage.

Her words are the things that I remember the most. That she still loved me and will keep on loving me. It was the same for me. I still regret not being alive to see the birth of my children. But when I look at our beautiful Lillie Anne interact with her teddy bear or hear her childlike giggle at all the new things I teach her while we spend endless hours in each other’s company.

Lillie is an innocent soul and I see her mother in her. She might have my curls and hair color but she was her mother. Her mother’s strength and independence inspired me to stop being so dependent on Lucille. The moment I heard her crying out for me that night before we went to the post office was when I truly completely fell in love with her.  
Waltzing in America was when it started and getting to know her in the parks almost every day increased that love but seeing her crying and knowing that I was somewhat the cause of it made my heart weep out for her and I spent the last remaining days with her trying to make up for everything but when she discovered Lucille and I in the attic I knew that I broke her heart in ways that I never expected. I regretted the look of betrayal in her eyes and knew that I wasn’t good enough for her. I wasn’t worth it if I was the cause of her heart breaking. It was bad enough when Carter Cushing forced me to say awful things to her back in Buffalo but swift words weren’t going to fix what happened.

“You lied to me!” She told me near the elevator.

“I did.”

“You poisoned me!” she said pointing the knife at me.

“You said you loved me!”

“I do.” I tell her with the honesty and love I could muster.

I wanted to kiss her temple so much but she didn’t trust me and I don’t blame her. I walked into the room to burn the documents and I never walked out alive.  
All those thoughts crossed my mind as I saw her, our children and Alan leave the property and I know that is what Edgar was feeling. Thinking about the good and bad times he had with his family. But at least he had a happier live with his family.

All the good parts of my family are something I’m dealing with while I’m dead. I don’t get to spend nights spent with my wife after making love for hours. Or hearing laughing in the halls from our children as they sneak into our room to wake us up and us pretending to be still asleep. But there isn’t much I can do trying to change it now. I’ve accepted this fate a long time ago but it doesn’t mean that I have to like it.


	7. Chapter 7

25 December, 1912

Edgar Harper had avoided Lucille as much as possible since he ran into her a week after he had died. She tried to convince him that I was lying to him and so my daughter and he told her that she was not welcome in his presence and she surprisingly agreed to his terms.

He missed his family every day and his beloved wife, Jane, who he missed terribly decided to put the house up for sale.

I felt for him and we would meet occasionally to have conversations about our perspectives on the afterlife. I had left Lillie to play with Annalise and Enola was watching them. 

Since the threat that Lucille made to us back in April I’ve kept my distance from her. I knew she felt my presence and I felt hers every day but she wasn’t my problem right now. My problem was that I had to help Edgar in ways that still plague me some days.

I walk into his room and he was standing by the window. Just looking outside hoping that one day he’ll see Jane and his children again one day. That was the same hope I had but I knew it was a certainty. I wonder what Edith would look like when we meet again. Would she appear the age she died or would she appear like the last day I saw her holding our children.

“Does it ever get any easier Thomas?” he asks me while still looking out the window.

“It does not. We’re ghosts. We didn’t die as innocents like my daughters did. You’ll always remember not only the last moments you have with your love and your children before you died but also the good and bad times. But you didn’t make as many horrible decisions in your life like I did.”

“I’ve met your sister Thomas. She is not right in the head. She doesn’t seem to even have a soul.”

“I don’t really want to think about her right now.” I tell him. It was bad enough that he had to stay in the same astral plane of existence with his sister, tormentor and murderer until he was finally reunited with his son and wife and then they could just ignore her and be the family they should’ve been if Lucille hadn’t ruined his life.

“Very well. I had a brother who was difficult to be around as well.”

“I doubt he was as bad as my sister.” I tell him.

He doesn’t say anything for a while and then he turns to look at me. “Where is your daughter today?”

“Which one?” I ask him.

“Both of them, Sharpe.”

“Lillie is playing with her sister in the nursery. Lucille never goes in there anymore.”

“Who watches over them just to make sure?”

“If it’s not myself, it’s Enola. She’s the only one I would trust. It wouldn't be my mother that’s for sure.”

He doesn’t say anything just looks at the snow falling. “I wonder how my children are spending their time in the snow. Christmas was always a family affair for us.”

“I remember hearing the carols from my room and Lillie would make her adorable giggles. I look at her and I wonder how Edith handled Christmas with our two children. She is good friends with a doctor named Alan McMichael who helps her raise Thomas. He’d have to be eleven years old now. I’ve missed twelve Christmases with them. I died before spending the first Christmas with my beloved Edith. I have no memories of happy Christmases but only the ones that I’ve spent with Lillie.”

“That’s sad. I’ve only been dead for eight or so months and I don’t know what Jane will do with Michael and Matilda, they are both still so young.”

1 January, 1913

It was a new year. Lillie was holding onto her most trusted companion, I would be lying if I too haven’t grown attached to Humphrey the bear. I still remembering her telling me a story about the day that she made her friend.

31 October, 1909

Lillie was holding onto Humphrey and I had her on my lap. She had a hard time adjusting to being a ghost earlier today. She had come across the bathroom where my mother stays. I had found them but I was too late to protect her from my mother’s harsh words. 

To my horror, my mother had told her about what horrible children that Lucille and I were and how she must have been a monstrous child to her younger brother and to Edith and she had cried and ran into my arms. I picked her up and looked at my mother in her cold dead eyes.

“Lillie is innocent in all of this Beatrice.” She wasn’t my mother right now. “Edith is and will always be a better parent than you nor James were to Lucille and I. Hell I’m a better parent and I never got the chance to get to know any of my children.”

“You could’ve had the chance with Annalise but she was born monstrous because you fucked your own sister!” she sneered at me.

“Watch your language Beatrice. There are young ears present.”

“She is dead like us but her death wasn’t as fast nor swift like ours were. She had to suffer because you are her father. She had to suffer because of her last name. How does it feel to have doomed your stupid wife and children to this hellhole?”

I glower at her and we leave the bathroom. 

That was hours ago and Lillie was still sniffling in my lap. “Darling why don’t you tell me about Humphrey?”

“Ok,” she said in a small voice. “Uncle Alan had given me him when I started getting sick. I was sick on and off for a year and mommy tried her best to make me happy and so did Thomas. It was mine and Thomas’s birthday and we always had a day spent with Alan and his family but we couldn’t because I had gotten sick, really sick and he showed up into my bedroom with Humphrey in his hands. He told me that he was going to protect me and whenever I feel scared he’ll be here with me always.”

I look at the teddy bear in my daughter’s clutches and I feel heartbroken that I wasn’t there when she needed me the most. If I could cry I would because Beatrice was right. I caused my daughter to be like this, because of my fucking last name I had ruined the lives of the three most important people in my life.

“Well Humphrey will always have my thanks for being your companion in the last months of your life, my darling,” I then kiss her temple.

1 January 1913

Lillie brought me back from my thoughts by bringing her friend to kiss my cheek, but it went through it. We both chuckle because she always did this whenever we were truly alone. It was something she reserved to when she knew that I was brooding about something. I tend to brood a lot when I wasn’t preoccupied with trying to keeping an eye on Lucille, mentoring Edgar on being dead but stuck in this house and spending time with my daughters.

“Sorry darling for not being here just now. I was just remembering you tell me the story of Humphrey.”

“I love that story! It doesn’t make me sad anymore.”

“I’m glad darling but it still makes me sad because you weren’t able to stay with mommy and Thomas and have another birthday.”

“But at least I’m with you daddy. You keep me safe just like Humphrey does.”

“Well it’s a great honor to be in the same group as Humphrey.”

“It’s true daddy. You are the best daddy in the world! Annalise and I are lucky that we get to spend every day with you. Thomas is going to love you too!”

“I hope you are right my dear. I’ve only seen him physically once. I love looking at the picture that your mother sent me when you were babies.”

“How old would he be now daddy?”

“Eleven years old.”

“But I’m still the eldest one right?”

“Yes you will always be his older sister.”

“Five minutes older and I loved reminding him that when I wasn’t sick.”

I had realized after she returned to me that the last few years of her life she was quite sickly and every morning she would have a slight cough but it always went away until the early morning hours.

“I bet he loved being reminded that my dear.”

“Not really. He would always run to mommy because I was picking on him but I was only kidding. I wasn’t a meanie like Aunt Lucille. Mommy always reminded us to be nice to each other. She always said that we had to do it for you and I didn’t understand that until I met Aunt Lucille.”

“That you are my darling daughter, that you are.” I tell her with a smile on my face and I’m thankful that even though she was sickly as a child she was always happy and felt loved. Something I wasn’t lucky to have.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *there is a significant time jump in this chapter*

30 November 1928

Lillie and I were in our room sitting on our bed reading a book when we saw Edith appear to us. She looks exactly as I remember her looking. It couldn’t have possibly have been more than twenty years since I saw her last. Lillie runs over to hug her mother.

“Mommy I have missed you so much. But daddy has kept me safe from mean Aunt Lucille and Grandmother Sharpe. They are both mean mommy.”

“Oh I know that well darling.”

“Edith…” I tell her as I walk over to her. My eyes scanning over her appearance as a ghost. “How?”

“I had cancer and I was sick for a long time but Thomas has his own life now. He is an inventor like you and he married a nice woman named Anne and they have a daughter of their own now named Marie.”

If I could cry tears I would. My son is happy and in love and got a chance to really be a father while he was alive. I’ve learned how to be a father for both Annalise and Lillie but it wasn’t the same like my son gets to be a father.

I put my hand on her cheek and she smiles as she leans into it. “I have missed you so much darling. I’ve been thinking about you every moment of my our separation and now we have the both of us here to make sure Lucille behaves herself.”

She then notices the piano playing from upstairs. “Oh causing trouble is she?”

“Oh yes. We did have an agreement for a time but I angered her years ago in trying to protect Edgar Harper he had died in the Titanic sinking.”

“Oh dear. What about his family?” Edith asks concerned for Jane and the Harper children.

“They survived the sinking and are probably still in America. He has accepted that he will see them again one day like I knew that you were going to return to me eventually and you have.”

She smiles and we look at Lillie who was hanging onto her mother’s hand for the first time since 1909, nineteen years since mother and daughter had laid eyes on one another.  
Hours pass and we just lay in our bed and I knew the peace wasn’t meant to last because Lucille appeared in our room.

“Oh the innocent and weak Edith returns.” She said with no emotion.

“Please leave Lucille.” I tell her as Lillie she clutches to me.

“No Thomas I just wanted to welcome Edith back and make sure that she understands that I still have power here.”

“That’s not true Lucille. We are know who has more power in this house than you. It’s Thomas. It’s been Thomas since the day you killed him and I killed you. I ended your suffering like you selfishly ended his. Love makes monsters out of us and I won’t hesitate in protecting my daughter.” Edith told her with a fierceness that I remember fondly.

It was like we were back in Buffalo and we were courting. Before I didn’t stop Lucille before she murdered Carter Cushing. She was always independent and had a beautiful and strong spirit and I’m relieved that I didn’t destroy that. 

“We’ll see about that.” She said before leaving the room and going back into the attic.

Edith turns to look at me as I say soothing words to Lillie. “Has she been doing things like this since Lillie arrived? This behavior for nineteen years?” she asks me with an edge that only a mother could possess when she felt her child was threatened.

I nod my head gently and she brings her hand to put on our daughter’s back. Lillie had started coughing again and that alarmed my wife a bit.

“She sometimes coughs when she feels stressed or scared. It tends to also happen in the mornings and late at night. She tends to take what I call ghost naps because she doesn’t have as much energy as you and I have because she became like us when she was only eight.”

“I remember. Those last few years I had with her were things that I cherished since the doctor gave us the diagnosis but we had those two and a half years and I tried to make her as comfortable as possible. Alan helped.”

“I know, without Uncle Alan she wouldn’t have Humphrey here to keep her company. She has made me hug the bear to from time to time and even though I feel ridiculous doing it I could never say no to her.”

Edith smiles and I bring my ghost lips to kiss hers for the first time in twenty seven years. It’s a chaste kiss because we had our daughter laying in between us.

3 December 1928 

Edith, Lillie and I walk along the halls. I hold onto both of their hands and we walk near the nursery where I knew Annalise and possibly Enola would be. “Now this is where the other girl in my life spends her time.”

“The baby you and Lucille had.” Edith added.

“Yes. I only knew her for three days before Lucille killed her. I understand now why she did it. Annalise wasn’t born right because her parents are siblings and that’s something that goes against nature but she is the only last remaining thing that tethers me to Lucille.”

“Thomas…”

“No I need to get this off my chest and we were never to talk about this when we were still alive. I was thrilled to find out that I was going to be a father, my darling. I wanted to be a better father than that bastard James Sharpe but it wasn’t meant to be. I know I’m a better father than he but my first chance nearly broke me and my sister. When Annalise died so did Lucille’s last chance at happiness and I hit the final nail on that coffin when I met you in Buffalo. I was supposed to marry Alan’s sister and I fell in love with you and we know what happened to your father. I wasn’t strong enough to stop her from killing him and I wasn’t strong enough to stop her from giving you the tea. But the one thing that Lucille could never take from us is the night we had when we made our two children. She’ll never be able to ruin that for us.”

“But she nearly did Thomas. She could’ve killed me and I didn’t even know I was pregnant at the time.”

“But she didn’t. We were able to stop her. I felt lost for a bit after I died. I still loved her when it happened but as time passed it could’ve been the months before we were reunited for that short time that I came to truly despise her but I try to mend things between us so life here could be safer for Lillie and for you.”

Edith looks at me with understanding eyes. “You tried your best Thomas but she is still trying to suffocate you even now.”

“But I’m not going to let her this time. I have been doing a great job at that for the last twenty seven years and I don’t see myself stopping now.”

Lillie lets go of my hand and walks into the nursery. She walks to the crib and smiles as Annalise turns her head to look at her younger sister.

“Mommy come meet Annalise.”

“You might want to do as our daughter says, she is your daughter after all.”

“What does that supposed to mean Mr. Sharpe?” she asks playfully.

“That she is thankfully more like a Cushing, than a Sharpe when it comes to her temperament.”

“Well except for that display of your nastiness at that party many years ago you have a nice temperament compared to your sister.” She tells me and walks near our daughter.  
Edith smiles as she sees how our daughter is with Annalise. “You are so gentle with her, sweetheart.”

“Daddy told me that we have to be soft with her because she doesn’t like it when people hurt her.” She tells Edith sadly.

Edith turns her face to look at me and gives me a sad smile and then brings her attention back to our daughter.

Hours later Edith and I walk down the stairs and she looks at the roof. “I see that this is fixed now.”

“Yeah Edgar had hired someone to fix the roof and also since he figured out how to properly mine the clay using my machine we don’t have to worry about the house sinking into the ground now.”

“That’s good. Any other families lived her yet?”

“There was another after the Harpers but they didn’t say for long because of Lucille haunting them. And I wasn’t fast enough in making sure everyone was safe.”

“She wouldn’t kill complete strangers now would she?” she asks me disgusted by what I was implying.

“She killed the mother and I am thankful that poor woman doesn’t have to stay here like the rest of us do.”

“That’s awful Thomas.”

“I know. Is it selfish of me being happy that you are here with me instead of being with your father again?”

“No it’s not. Not in the slightest. We were stolen our lives together because of what you and Lucille used to do. You aren’t that man anymore. I look at your ashen white face with that scar and I know that you died for us. You died protecting your wife and children and that is something that I will always be thankful for. We know I would’ve figured a way out eventually.”

I look at her sadly and she kisses my lips again. I was thankful that I was able to have these kisses with my beloved Edith until the end of time.


End file.
